C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[mtm84]

Instead of the current system using the surface area of a sphere?  Nope.

Your suggestion would be equally complicated, then add one more step, and all with a less-easily-visualized formula.

Not really adding a step, just combing the layers.  If you can calculate the surface area from HS, you can calculate the radius just as easily from the HS.  After that all you are doing is figuring out what the thickness of the armor is, which is trivial (thickness of a strength one armor layer divided by the racial armor strength and time that by the number of layers). One shot.  No calculating each layer individually.  As for visualizing it, it isn’t any harder then the surface area, unless I miss understood you.  Is the equation itself longer?  Sure.  I think it’s less ambiguous compared to nesting surface areas on top of each other though.


I know this won’t happen, I’m just frustrated trying to work out what Steve is doing.  I know how it is supposed to work but none of my layers past the first one line up.  Maybe I’m missing something obvious which wouldn’t be the first time.

[Steve Walmsley]

So I appreciate the... “arcane” calculations (may they never be spoken) that are used for armor, but wouldn’t it be simpler to use the volume of a spherical shell instead?  Armor columns would be based on internal component volume and you can calculate any number of layers and armor strength based off the starting point of the thickness of 1 layer of strength 1 armor.

(Also I won’t have to bash my head in trying to match how armor is described as working with how it actually works >.>)

The armour calculation uses the surface area of a sphere. That is more realistic than using the volume of the sphere.

[Father Tim]

. . .and iterates three times to account for the added mass of the armour itself.

[mtm84]

The armour calculation uses the surface area of a sphere. That is more realistic than using the volume of the sphere.

I understand that armor uses the surface area of a sphere, but I do not understand your use of more realistic here.  Using the volume of a shell is conceptually the same as using the surface area of a sphere, the armor is going to have a thickness either way.  Unless you mean "ease of calculating one layer of armor by hand", which yes I agree.  But if you are already calculating the surface area of a sphere based on its volume, calculating the radius of a sphere isn't any harder, and that radius is all you need to find the shell volume.  less compounded rounding errors.  no per layer calculations.


Some of the math.  Volume of a sphere is (4/3) * pi * R^3.  If you add the thickness of the armor to R, you would get the volume of the internal components plus the armor, aka the ECS in aurora terms.  Armor thickness is  (Number of Layers / Strength per HS) * (magic number) .  In aurora's case I believe this number to be .25, since that's what I get whenever I compare the radius of internal components to the radius of the ECS of a ship for one layer of armor when armor strength per HS is taken into account.  I understand that this is more complicated then Surface Area / 4 / Armor Strength per HS.  But it lets you calculate all of the armor in one equation for any number of layers.  End result is still an amount of Armor in HS needed to cover a sphere.  All you need to give the equation would be the Radius, the number of layers, and the strength of the armor per HS.  I believe the end math isn't any more complicated then the new sensor strength model.  Here's what it looks like:

Armor HS = 4.18879 * ( (R + T)^3 - R^3)

where R is 0.62035 * (HS of internal components) ^ (1/3)
and T is Number of Armor Layers / Armor Tech Strength / 4

This gives values that are a bit smaller then Aurora gives now, but still requires more armor every layer then the last one.  Armor columns is calculated the same, Surface Area of ECS / 4.


I guess this is all just frustration that when I try to calculate armor on my own it never matches what Aurora does, even for 1 layer.  for example, I have a ship that has a size of 251.3 without armor (adding up all the components).  the surface area of this volume in a sphere is 192.6, Dividing by 4 gives an armor strength required of 48.2.  with a HD duranium armor value of 6, that gives us 8 worth of armor.  but Aurora says it has armor strength requirement of 49.2 for 8.2 armor.  So where does this extra .2 come from?  even with heavy rounding I don't see how you can go from 192.6 surface area to 196.8 with a pre armor HS of 251.3.  From what I understand the armor strength shown in the ship designer is the sum of  Surface Area / 4 for every layer.  But if I can't match what Aurora is doing on one layer I have no hope of accurately doing it for multiple layers.  Maybe simpler was the wrong word to use in my original post on this topic.  Perhaps "easier to replicate would have been better.  In any case, I'm not suggesting this to be a troll or to disparage the system Steve has now.  To me it just seems more natural that you could add up layers of uniform armor thickness, and that an individual layer would have a thickness based on the tech level.

Or maybe I'm just bored waiting for C# to drop so I can play around with the new ground forces formations...

[Jorgen_CAB]

If possible make CIWS systems smaller so they can be used a bit more often, I almost NEVER use them in favour of just adding a few extra 10cm low tech railguns to serve a similar purpose but that also can protect other ships as well.

I know that CIWS can be used on civilian ships and stations, but they really are of limited use there as well as high valued targets almost always are protected by an escort anyway.

You also can build very cheap "drones" and deploy them when needed such as these...

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Phalanx IIa class Point Defence Drone    412 tons     2 Crew     69.2 BP      TCS 8.24  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 7.4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 82%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 29    5YR 442    Max Repair 42 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 2   

Single Gauss Cannon R3-85 Turret (1x3)    Range 30 000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.4 20-7500 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 40 000 km   TS: 30000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
or this...

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Phalanx IIb class Point Defence Drone    500 tons     4 Crew     65.4 BP      TCS 10  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 8.66
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 24    5YR 354    Max Repair 28 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 0   

Triple 10cm C1 Infrared Laser Turret (1x3)    Range 30 000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 9-3     RM 1    ROF 15        3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.4 20-7500 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 40 000 km   TS: 30000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.3 (1)     Total Power Output 3.12    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Compared to this...

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Rate of Fire: 6 shots every 5 seconds
Dual GC: 5HS    Turret: 1.6 HS    Fire Control: 0.5 HS    Sensor 0.1071 HS    ECCM: 0.5
Overall Size: 7.7 HS    HTK: 2
Tracking Speed: 20000 km/s     ECCM Level: 1
Cost: 41    Crew: 8
Materials Required: 8x Duranium  5x Corbomite  15x Vendarite  13x Uridium
Base Chance to Hit: 50%
Given the new rules and calculations for turrets I'm not sure but I think that will just impact the drones more possitively than the CIWS system too perhaps. Given that these small "drones" can also protect other ships for a relatively small cost and will be very effective due to its very high tracking speeds. I'm not sure if using fighter fire controls to push tracking speed high is intended behaviour but it certainly is useful, pushing it to even 40000km/s is not impossible for the Gauss system... but I figured that 30000km/s would be more than enough for C# especially when you add tracking bonus to that as well.

The above is not the only reason why I suggest reducing the size of CIWS... I would like to fit them on smaller platforms too and I really think they should be smaller. Since they only shoot targets up to 1000km I think they should be consideraly smaller not just 2.5 HS instead of 3. I would make them at least 1.5HS if not even 1HS in size. That way you would actually start consider adding them to warships as they are so small so why not.

Since the mechanic of fire-control versus salvoes have been changed I also think CIWS need this boost to keep being at least somewhat interesting system to put on a ship.

I also would like to put a CIWS system on my small patrol vessels and be at least somewhat effective.

I really don't think that you can abuse them in that many ways... sure someone are going to load up a large commercial ships with 1000 CIWS and charge them at an NPR base who then empty their missile magazines at it, but that is pure mechanical abuse because the AI can't deal with it, in the same way you can run in and then kite their missiles.

[Polestar]

I'm liking a lot of the recent suggestions made here. 

Re. conversation about how mines might specialize in the production of desired minerals:

I am a big "yes, please" for any revision to mining that allows us to fully appreciate quality mining sites that don't include the full suite of scarce TN resources. I am also a big supporter for changes that ease the pain on resource-reliant AI entities (if any), and/or that make multi-faction games more competitive. If the player requests such a game, then there simply must be enough adequate resource sites, in reasonable range, to give more than one empire a fair shot. Letting Gallium 0.8, Duranium 0.0 worlds specialize would therefore be a big, big win.


Re. fleshing out pre-TN gameplay a bit:

Aurora allows players to choose pre-TN starts, but doesn't really deliver much to do in such games except to develop a single world. The problem is more than that it's so tedious to get anywhere with pre-TN tech, it's that there are almost no resources that would make you want to bother. I feel that Aurora would do well to "fish or cut bait" here: If pre-TN is retained, let it deliver a bit more gameplay. If this is not desired, remove it.

I lean towards removal, because of the lack of any physics required to support Newtonian (or Einsteinian) -constrained motion. Because bothering with these is just not what TN Aurora's all about, worrying about pre-TN ships and movement would be a major distraction, not merely at the coding level, but at the game design level. The question has to be asked: At what point do we need to simply "let Aurora be Aurora"?


Re. Ship and military concepts:

I like the afterburner idea. 
Fleshing out armor and allowing different types sounds like it could add a bunch to the gameplay. I really liked Star Ruler I  and Star Ruler II's take on all this.

I quite take mtm84's point that the way armor is actually calculated is needlessly opaque. It  /might/ even be mathematically incorrect, perhaps due to iterative calculations on rounded results. I don't know. All I know is that armor is weird. Better, like he says, to calculate the volume of a shell  with a specified thickness, and then round to an even number of armor boxes only once.
     The easiest way to translate this result to the armor box that Aurora currently uses is to divide the  non-rounded armor volume by the number of armor rows,  then round the result. If this leads to armor calculations that jump around too much for armored small ships, then either increase the number of boxes per unit volume, or re-think how armor is damaged.

I'd love CIWS systems that weren't so big.  Like Jordan_CAB, however, I do worry about them potentially getting overpowered. One straightforward way to balance them is to remember that, in the real world, the effectiveness of CIWS is not linear with their number. The first such system protects better then CIWS # 10, regardless of the weight of incoming. Among the reasons for this is that it is much easier to optimize integrated fire control and weapon systems LOS/LOF relative to incoming heat for one system, than it is for multiple, each having their own LOS/LOF, and each having to  coordinate with all others ... or just overkill some missiles and miss others.


SM option for creating mining colonies:

Solid idea. Off-world mining, transport, and the civilian sector are often critical parts of the backstory.

[TMaekler]

If mines are going to be specialized, how about giving them an initial maximum they are able to mine, and that maximum can be extended by research.

Example:
Duranium 0,8
Vendarite 0,6
Neutronium 0,7
Iridiums 0,5

Initial capacity would be 1,2. That can be used to mine 0,8 duranium and 0,4 Vendarite. Or any other values that adds up to 1,2.

[mtm84]

I wouldn't mind an expansion of CIWS, but I don't think they could get any smaller then what they are now unless you are reducing the size of the Gauss cannons themselves.  As far as I know the size is simply based on a twin turret with size 3 cannons using 4x turret speed with a built in fire control and an active sensor, all using (mostly) normal sized components.  The only benefit is that you don't have to set up fire controls on the ship to use them and you can stick them on civilian ships.  Especially with the new auto fire control system C# is going to have, it will probably always be more space effective to set up your own point defense systems on a ship set to final defensive fire, since you wont need a bunch of fire controls and active sensors for every turret.

For some perspective, in modern day navies you really don't see more then 1 or two systems on smaller ships.  USN frigates and destroyers have 1-2, cruisers have 2, carriers 4.  Of course those CIWS systems are considerably smaller than the Aurora version ( they would be about .125 HS).  I wonder how small a twin .5 Gauss CIWS would be?  More options are always a plus, I can't imagine it would be hard to add a weapon size selection to that screen.  (as an aside, I think there is a bug in VB6 aurora where CIWS uses the highest turret speed tech regardless of what you select in the design.)

[Jorgen_CAB]

I wouldn't mind an expansion of CIWS, but I don't think they could get any smaller then what they are now unless you are reducing the size of the Gauss cannons themselves.  As far as I know the size is simply based on a twin turret with size 3 cannons using 4x turret speed with a built in fire control and an active sensor, all using (mostly) normal sized components.  The only benefit is that you don't have to set up fire controls on the ship to use them and you can stick them on civilian ships.  Especially with the new auto fire control system C# is going to have, it will probably always be more space effective to set up your own point defense systems on a ship set to final defensive fire, since you wont need a bunch of fire controls and active sensors for every turret.

For some perspective, in modern day navies you really don't see more then 1 or two systems on smaller ships.  USN frigates and destroyers have 1-2, cruisers have 2, carriers 4.  Of course those CIWS systems are considerably smaller than the Aurora version ( they would be about .125 HS).  I wonder how small a twin .5 Gauss CIWS would be?  More options are always a plus, I can't imagine it would be hard to add a weapon size selection to that screen.  (as an aside, I think there is a bug in VB6 aurora where CIWS uses the highest turret speed tech regardless of what you select in the design.)

As I said in my suggestion... CURRENT size of the CIWS guns are 2.5 HS for a 50% Gauss where a regular 50% Gauss is 3HS... so they already are a bit smaller.

My point was that fire-controls have increased in efficiency and CIWS already are way too big to be of any use in comparison to how more effective it is to have a turret that can cover more than itself.

The "problem" is that they are too large because space is a huge premium on a military ship, for commercial ships this change would practically mean nothing as the size of the system really don't matter much at all.

If the Gauss gun was modelled at 1HS (for a 50% size) I actually might consider that as an option over a few 10cm railguns on patrol and smaller frigates. I would definitely put one or two on most designs as they are quite cheap and small enough to not compromise much of anything on the ship. That would make them used in roughly the same way CIWS are used on modern ships as well.

[mtm84]

My apologies, I miss read some of your post. And didn’t realize the Gauss cannons where smaller then normal, but it makes sense since they only shoot at 1000km.  I still think trading off accuracy for smaller ciws size would be the way to go if you wanted the options.  You don’t want to make them so small that there’s no point in other PD setups vs spamming CIWS.  I’m not sure what that balance would be though.  I do agree that as they stand now they are too big to be used on smaller craft. But on the other hand smaller ships are just the place for finely tuned setups where you don’t want to replicate multiple fire controls and sensors per weapon system.

[Jorgen_CAB]

My apologies, I miss read some of your post. And didn’t realize the Gauss cannons where smaller then normal, but it makes sense since they only shoot at 1000km.  I still think trading off accuracy for smaller ciws size would be the way to go if you wanted the options.  You don’t want to make them so small that there’s no point in other PD setups vs spamming CIWS.  I’m not sure what that balance would be though.  I do agree that as they stand now they are too big to be used on smaller craft. But on the other hand smaller ships are just the place for finely tuned setups where you don’t want to replicate multiple fire controls and sensors per weapon system.

In my opinion trading size for accuracy is not an option as you are better off just add another 10cm railgun for PD (plus beam combat ability) and just use the beam fire control you already have on the ship anyway, that is just about 300-350t for a decent PD option. A CIWS will not really be much better at that size AND it will only defend the ship itself which is a huge drawback in most situations. These CIWS need to be much more efficient than regular PD in order to even be considered.

You don't have to worry about spamming CIWS ever being a better option, they would have to be many magnitudes better before that would ever happen. Why would anyone shoot at a ship full of CIWS fi they take up 25% of the hull in addition to engines, armour and shields... there really are nothing left for anything important to protect. Having 25% dedicated to PD is always meaningful even if they are five time less efficient as they can protect not just itself but other ships as well, a few of these ships and you are vastly more better of than putting CIWS on all the ships. Not to mention regular PD also can fire directly at opposing ships if they approach to point blank range.

[ReviewDude01]

Reply to Gauss PD and Ciws.

I also think that multiple Gauss PD in same ship squadron firing at the same time should suffer a small % accuracy penalty increasing with numbers of Gauss PD shooting in same 5 second phase. Logic is that it is harder to coordinate for example 100 Gauss PD cannons cowering fleet to shoot at the right targets from incoming salvo / to shorten it imagine an extremely "crowded" tower defence game where each tower kills enemy in one hit and the problem is overshooting / overkill. the more towers are in one place the more overkill happens assuming they are in one place shooting at the same time and having not an instant delivery weapon - ballistics. Then Ciws would be also more viable than current gauss pd.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Reply to Gauss PD and Ciws.

I also think that multiple Gauss PD in same ship squadron firing at the same time should suffer a small % accuracy penalty increasing with numbers of Gauss PD shooting in same 5 second phase. Logic is that it is harder to coordinate for example 100 Gauss PD cannons cowering fleet to shoot at the right targets from incoming salvo / to shorten it imagine an extremely "crowded" tower defence game where each tower kills enemy in one hit and the problem is overshooting / overkill. the more towers are in one place the more overkill happens assuming they are in one place shooting at the same time and having not an instant delivery weapon - ballistics. Then Ciws would be also more viable than current gauss pd.

In reality this goes for all weapons fire more or less. The more weapons you use at the same target the less effective they are. In WW1 & 2 naval gunfire combat there was very difficult to know where your shot ended up the more shots were targeted at the same ship, this made fire-correction more difficult... it was bad enough when the guns of the own ship fired at the same target but double worse when another ship did it.

It could be a good feature if Aurora had some of that so effectiveness of PD goes down with a few different factors. The more weapons that coordinate there are some effective penalties. More fire-controls per weapons would reduce this effect somewhat. But it would also depend on the incoming targets, the more targets the less of a problem this is. This means you would not get a direct linear effect of effectiveness and there is a much higher risk of leaking missiles even with a rather good PD coverage.

Could be interesting...

[Jorgen_CAB]

In addition you could also throw in the possibility of a ship the perform "evasive manoeuvres" to make incoming fire less accurate but of course reducing THAT ships accuracy as well... perhaps increase a ships "effective speed" for targeting with x2 while reduce the ships accuracy with 75%.

That would also make none combat ship able to do something when targeted and might also force groups of ships to spread its fire around a bit more.

This would not just represent the ship moving more erratic, but also spending more power and resources on damage prevention, electronic counter measures that interfere with their own targeting and tracking sensors etc.

This could also be used with the "Afterburner" suggestion... and ship that uses afterburner also effectively count as conducting evasive manoeuvres as well. A ship trying to get missiles to hit while using afterburners during ANY point in the missiles flight to the target gets a 75% deduction on accuracy (for game balance sake).

[TMaekler]

To get more variety in the names of your people, an option to mix first and last names of the selected languages would be nice.